"Starting today, I'll be your supervisor. My name is Noah."
Looking at the few children standing nervously in front of him, Noah held a pen and a clipboard, showing no trace of nervousness on his face.
After all, based on his mental age and his combat experience, these "peers" were all just literal kids to him.
On his second day of work, Noah had already changed into the same crisp white lab coat Bill wore.
He didn't really understand why these underground researchers always dressed like medical doctors when they were doing military wetwork.
When he asked Bill that exact question, the old man couldn't give him a straight answer either.
He simply threw back a grumpy question, "What, you don't like the uniform?"
Noah didn't answer yes or no.
Instead, he picked out one practical advantage. "The pockets on this coat are pretty deep, though. You can fit quite a lot of ammo in them."
Of the seven orphan recruits standing in a line before Noah, everyone except Kurome was visibly sweating with nerves.
But that intense nervousness only lasted until they actually got a good look at Noah's face.
After he introduced himself, Noah's gaze swept back and forth across the line of seven kids.
He saw surprise, confusion, cold indifference, heavy suspicion, and outright disdain.
But he didn't care.
He simply clicked his pen and began organizing the schedule according to the paperwork Bill had given him.
"Mm, first of all..."
"Wait!"
Two overlapping voices suddenly rang out, cutting him off.
"Hm?" Noah raised an eyebrow and lifted his gaze from his clipboard to the faces of the two recruits who had spoken up.
Somewhat unexpectedly, two girls had stepped forward from the line.
One was a black-haired girl wearing round glasses, giving off the quiet air of a bookish young lady.
The other was a much wilder-looking girl with waist-length, messy golden hair and a fierce, defiant glare.
Noah checked his roster.
The black-haired one is Womyn, and the blonde is Gin.
"What is it? Is there a problem?" Noah asked.
Though he could guess exactly what they wanted to say, he figured it was better to let them vent their frustration.
"A problem? Yeah, there's a huge problem," Gin gritted her teeth, clenching her small fists. "You say you're our new supervisor? But from where I'm standing, you're obviously the exact same age as us. What makes you so special?"
'She's got spirit,' Noah thought.
'It seemed this blonde girl's physical resistance to the combat drugs was even stronger than Kurome's.'
'Was it a natural genetic trait? In any case, her aggressive personality didn't seem to have been crushed by the torment of the chemical trials.'
Womyn hadn't spoken up alongside her, but from the sharp assessing look in the bespectacled girl's eyes, Noah could tell she agreed completely.
The other five kids in the line grew even more terrified.
All this time, they had never dared to openly resist the adult scientists and guards down here.
It wasn't just because of the massive difference in status; it was because of the brutal punishments. If an orphan disobeyed a direct order, they were tortured in the isolation cells.
The fact that these two girls still remained rebellious even after surviving the punishment cells showed how stubborn they were.
Noah could tell their companions desperately wanted to warn them to shut up, but they were forcing themselves to stay quiet because he was watching.
Only Kurome seemed completely dazed, staring blankly at the sterile floor tiles without even lifting her head.
She didn't question anything, nor did she speak.
She had barely said a single word since Noah walked into the room.
"Mm. To put it simply, you want to see what I can do?" Noah asked, clicking his pen.
He didn't beat around the bush.
Violence was the simplest, most universally understood language in the world.
Ninety-nine percent of problems in the Empire could be solved with overwhelming violence.
Compared to wasting time explaining his credentials or proving his competence on paper, demonstrating his strength in a spar seemed much more efficient.
"You're actually going to accept a challenge?" Womyn asked, pushing her glasses up her nose. She clearly hadn't expected things to develop this way.
Suddenly, a cold spike of fear hit her.
Looking at the easy, relaxed calmness on the face of the boy before her—who could at most be only two or three years older than herself—she suddenly had the terrifying illusion that he was impossible to defeat!
She shook her head, forcing the random thought out of her mind.
She stepped forward to stand beside Gin. "Let me confirm something first. Are you an elite assassin with a high KILL RANK?"
Hearing her mention KILL RANK, Noah showed a trace of genuine interest.
"No, I'm not. I only arrived at the Scientific Corps yesterday. The funny thing is, they put me in charge of an assassination squad on my second day. Honestly, I find it pretty baffling, too."
"Then..."
"Don't ask any more questions. You look like you can barely hold yourself back from swinging as it is," Noah said, tossing his clipboard onto a nearby desk. "Right here is fine. Womyn and Gin—you two come at me together."
"What?"
Gin and Womyn's pupils contracted at the exact same time.
Being looked down on so casually made them feel deeply humiliated.
KILL RANK was the strict hierarchy of the Empire's assassins, determined entirely by the number of successful kills on active missions.
The top seven ranked assassins were placed into the "Elite Unit," a ghost squad formed exclusively from the best killers in the nation.
Naturally, they were assigned the hardest, most suicidal missions.
The reason these starving orphans had willingly joined the brutal selection process to become government assassins wasn't just for food and a warm bed.
It was because they desperately wanted to become strong enough to survive, and to eliminate the enemies of the Empire—to become actual allies of justice.
If they could kill the terrorists who endangered the peace, wouldn't that make them heroes? Even if they were heroes living in the shadows.
Joining the Elite Unit was considered a tremendous honor. Every single child in this lab wanted to earn a spot in it.
At first, several of them guessed this calm new supervisor might be a young prodigy from the Elite Unit, which was why they felt so competitive and hostile toward him.
But he just admitted he wasn't.
He wasn't a member of the Elite Unit, yet he wanted both of them to attack him at the same time?
Both girls were "top students," currently ranked within the top ten of the junior KILL RANK bracket.
They had never been brushed off like this before.
"Supervisor, let me confirm this. Right now, right in the middle of this room, I'm allowed to attack you?" Gin asked, visibly suppressing her boiling anger.
Her teeth were clenched the whole time she spoke.
She shot a sharp glance at Womyn beside her, making it clear she intended to take the first shot.
Womyn didn't fight her over it, she quietly stepped back three paces to give Gin room.
Noah casually unbuttoned his lab coat. "Yes, right now—"
Before he even finished speaking, Gin exploded forward.
In the short interval between his words, she crossed the entire distance between them. By the time she stepped into his guard, Noah hadn't even finished his sentence.
'So fast!'
Seeing Gin's explosive burst of speed, the other five recruits watching from the sidelines gasped in surprise.
They knew they were inferior to the elites ranked on the leaderboard, but precisely because they wanted to grow stronger, they kept willingly taking the enhancement drugs to boost their bodies, and the physical effects were obvious.
Almost every day, they felt as though they could easily beat the version of themselves from the day before.
Gin's movement kicked up a strong gust of wind, her fist producing a sharp, whistling sound as it tore through the air.
Showing no mercy, she aimed a brutal right hook straight for Noah's face.
In Noah's eyes, the punch that made the other kids marvel was painfully, predictably slow—so slow that he had enough time to blink before dodging.
He merely tilted his head slightly to the left. The heavy, drug-enhanced punch brushed past his cheek without causing a single scratch.
Missing her opening blow, Gin didn't get discouraged.
From the start, she never thought her new supervisor was just a guy who talked big.
That was why she brought out a hundred and twenty percent of her physical strength right out of the gate.
And yet, he still dodged it effortlessly.
That meant his reaction speed was far superior to her sprint speed!
Gin's brow tightened.
The fist that had cut through empty air instantly snapped back to her guard, while she feinted with her left leg, making it look as though she were about to launch a sweeping low kick.
At that exact instant, Noah saw straight through both her physical movement and her tactical intention.
He suddenly reached out and grabbed the wrist of the arm she had only just begun pulling back.
At the same time, he stepped forward, dropping into a low bow stance, directly disrupting the unstable footing she relied on for her kick.
Gin cried out as her center of gravity vanished.
Noah tightened his iron grip on her wrist, slipped seamlessly into her guard, lifted her off the floor in one smooth motion, and threw her over his shoulder with a textbook judo throw.
"Ahhh!" Gin shouted as she flew through the air.
But just as she was about to slam back-first into the hard floor tiles, she violently twisted her core, braced herself with one hand against the floor, and adjusted her center of gravity.
She managed to avoid falling flat, landing cleanly in a defensive crouch instead.
She looked blankly at the massive distance between herself and Noah.
The sheer unwillingness to accept defeat burned in her eyes.
Seeing her glare, Noah raised a hand and casually beckoned her forward with two fingers.
That gesture instantly provoked her.
This time, her attack became even more direct and brutal.
She lunged forward in a deep bow stance, both arms moving wildly, her fists flashing fast enough to leave blurry afterimages in the air.
Watching from the side, even Womyn became dead serious.
That speed and explosive force were already on par with her own peak output!
But...
'Amazing,' Womyn thought, her eyes wide.
She stared in shock at the boy who remained perfectly calm and unhurried in the midst of Gin's flurry of fists, neutralizing every single attack with nothing but his left hand and tiny, efficient evasive footwork.
Palm deflecting fist, chopping across the wrist to break momentum, redirecting heavy force in a circular motion.
Noah actually didn't have a massive amount of experience in pure hand-to-hand martial arts.
After all, back in Orario, there were very few adventurers who fought barehanded.
Trying to beat a dungeon monster to death with nothing but two fists was totally unrealistic.
Joint-lock techniques were also completely useless against giant beasts. So no matter how strong an adventurer was, they always had a primary weapon they specialized in swinging.
Even so, thanks to the magic he absorbed in the Blazer world, he still possessed twenty or thirty years' worth of muscle memory and tactical combat skill. It was just somewhat broad and not especially refined for ring fighting.
'Damn it,' Gin cursed internally.
She kept throwing punch after punch, but her confidence was cracking.
'Why? Why can't I hit him?! He hasn't even moved a single step backward!'
'Could it be that i'm actually... weak?'
Gin's sudden self-doubt caused her aggressive rhythm to pause for a fraction of a second.
'This is bad!'
Just as the girl realized she had exposed an opening, she instinctively squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the counterattack.
She expected a heavy blow to strike her ribs, waiting for the pain...
But no matter how much time passed, the pain never came.
When she cautiously opened her eyes to look at the boy in front of her, she found that he wasn't there at all.
"Huh? Where'd he go?"
"Right behind you."
'What?!'
The calm voice came from right over her shoulder.
Gin didn't even have time to turn around before a light, precise karate chop from Noah's hand landed squarely on the top of her head.
While she stood there, completely stunned, he added, "Alright, now you're dead."
'No. That's impossible. What just happened?'
It was too fast—she hadn't seen a thing.
When did he slip behind her? Was it really in just that split second? Had he seen through all of her movements before she even made them?
The other kids watching from the side were all utterly astonished to see Noah so easily and playfully overwhelm Gin, the fierce blonde girl ranked near the top of their class.
'He's really incredible,' Womyn thought. 'Even though he's about the same age as us.'
Noah casually pulled a pen out of his pocket and picked his clipboard back up.
"Supervisor..." Womyn wanted to honestly express her admiration, but with the words on the tip of her tongue, her pride made her feel a little too embarrassed to say them out loud.
Instead, the timid girl with the worst test results among the seven—named Remus—actually walked straight up to Noah and craned her neck to peek at what he was writing on the clipboard.
'Idiot!' Womyn panicked. 'If you do that—you'll get killed!'
Womyn instantly grew tense, ready to jump in.
Questioning a new superior was still within the acceptable, unspoken rules of the lab.
After all, even if they didn't pick a fight, a new adult superior would definitely find some excuse to beat them and put them in their place from the start, just to establish the chain of command through fear.
It was just that this specific supervisor was highly unusual. He wasn't vicious-looking, nor was he sinister and frightening.
He wasn't even an adult, but rather a peer with an easygoing, almost lazy manner.
But he was still the commanding officer of an Imperial assassination squad.
Who knew if he had some twisted, sadistic quirk hiding under that smile?
As for what was written on that clipboard, Womyn didn't dare guess.
It was probably classified hit lists or execution orders.
She actually leaned in to look?
Was this girl an idiot?
Her nerves were way too thick!
"What have you been writing since earlier?" Remus was a somewhat "innocent" girl.
With a personality like hers, she honestly did not seem very reliable as an assassin.
However, the fact that she had survived the selection meant she was not without merit.
Still, surviving once was not the important part.
What mattered was whether she could keep surviving.
Seeing Remus recklessly press herself almost right up against their "commanding officer," Womyn's heart nearly stopped.
She could practically see the image of Remus being torn in half.
Yet to her surprise, Noah answered quite normally.
"Oh, I'm recording each of your personalities, habits, and things like that."
"Eh? Why?"
Because even Truthseeker could not completely analyze a person.
Of course, there was no way he could say that.
"Mm. This work is very stressful, isn't it? Aside from your bodies, I'm also responsible for your psychological health. That's why I need to keep long-term records of these things, so I can see whether any major changes occur in you."
As he spoke, he added notes beneath Remus's name such as "natural airhead," "slow-witted," and "thick nerves."
The girl who personally witnessed all of this immediately protested.
"That's so mean! How can you say that about me?"
"Haaah."
Womyn let out a sigh of relief and noticed that Gin had relaxed as well.
Apparently, she had not been the only one worried about Remus.
Still, now that she thought about it, this "commanding officer" really was different.
Calling him strange did not seem enough to describe him.
Perhaps "peculiar" was the more accurate word.
...
After getting to know the members of Class A, Noah went to Bill's office in the afternoon as agreed.
Although it was called an office, it had already been merged with the laboratory, so there was essentially no real distinction between the two.
Seeing Noah arrive on time, Bill did not ask whether the work had gone smoothly.
Instead, he immediately began his lesson.
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